Telling adults about one's plight as a victim of bullying: Student- and context-related factors predicting disclosure.

We examined student- and context-related factors related to whether bullied students tell adults about their plight at school or at home. The sample included 1,266 students in primary (Grades 4-6) and lower secondary (Grades 8-9) schools, who had answered an online questionnaire at two measurement points about 5 months apart and were identified as victims of bullying on the basis of the latter. Only 55.4% of the bullied students had told their situation to someone, and much fewer had told an adult. Telling an adult at home was more common (34.0%) than telling a teacher (20.6%) or some other adult at school (12.7%). In a longitudinal structural equation model (SEM), factors related to increased likelihood of telling an adult were female gender, lower grade level, the chronicity of victimization, perceived negative teacher attitude towards bullying (teacher not tolerating bullying), and perceived peer support for victims (classmates' tendency to defend students who are victimized).

Effects of the KiVa anti-bullying program on defending behavior: Investigating individual-level mechanisms of change.

Given that defending victimized peers might help discourage bullying behavior and prevent its harmful consequences, various anti-bullying programs have attempted to increase defending behavior among participating children. However, the cognitions that underlie the effectiveness of interventions in increasing defending remain unknown. Data for this randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the KiVa anti-bullying program were collected in Finnish primary schools at baseline, after 5 months of implementation, and after 9 months of implementation and were used to examine the possible mediating role of seven psychological factors (empathy for the victim, feelings of responsibility to intervene, self-efficacy for defending, negative attitudes towards victims, and outcome expectations that defending would decrease or stop the bullying, be beneficial for one's status, and not increase one's risk of being victimized). Analyses conducted on a sample of 5731 children (baseline Mage = 11 years; 51% girls) revealed that the positive effects of KiVa on defending behavior after 9 months of implementation could partly be explained by the positive effects of the program on two factors (i.e., feelings of responsibility to intervene and expectations that the defending would make the bullying decrease or stop) after 5 months of implementation. This study provides information regarding the individual-level factors that anti-bullying interventions can target to successfully promote defending of victimized peers in primary schools.

Kindergarten Training in Phonological Awareness: Fluency and Comprehension Gains Are Greatest for Readers at Risk in Grades 1 Through 9.

Training in phonological awareness has brought about well-documented positive effects on learning to read in lower-primary grades. Less is known about long-term gains extending to upper-primary and junior high school. The few longitudinal studies covering at least 5 years suggest that gains in decoding are sustained, whereas effects on reading comprehension have either not been studied or produced equivocal results. The present study followed up the reading development of 209 Finland Swedish students from kindergarten until Grade 9, half of whom participated in an 8-month phonological intervention in kindergarten. The intervention group outperformed the control group in both word reading and reading comprehension in Grades 1 through 9. However, albeit statistically significant, the differences at the group level were small. The main result was a clear-cut difference in both skills among readers at risk belonging to the lowest 25% in foundational skills at the beginning of kindergarten. In Grade 6, altogether 60% of the nontrained readers at risk still belonged to the lowest quartile in reading comprehension as opposed to 24% of their peers in the intervention group. The pattern was repeated in Grade 9, with trained readers at risk performing at the level of nontrained mainstream readers.